Only Those Who Planned It Will Survive

Przeżyją tylko Ci, którzy to zaplanowali.

The idea of the installation is based on the development of a form of "video-poster", which appeared in the installation "Communostalgie". The video is treated here as a graphical dynamic visual element of the whole compositions. In that case technical drawing and typography is combine with video of little child figures.The work consists of six posters depicting six different types of shelters designed as a place to hide during a nuclear attack. Architectural drawings are taken from the original American publications from the period of cold war. They were mainly design for families with their own free-standing houses proposing a variety of types of solutions from low-budget basement conversions to reinforced concrete underground structures.Each of the posters is a standalone short story scene of the group of children's life in shelter. A short excerpt from their attempts to maintain "normal" in such different conditions.

"In 1959, a Miami radio station and bomb shelter manufacturing company held a promotion looking for a couple who were willing to marry and spend a two-week honeymoon in a fallout shelter. Melvin and Maria Mininson, the selected couple, took to the shelter following their wedding reception, and spent their honeymoon as highly publicized test subjects. They ran the shelter according to instructions, and sealed off from the outside world, with the exception of a telephone line that was constantly off the hook with reporters, Civil Defense officials and family members. The honeymoon/experiment ran fine with few problems, and after their two weeks, the couple cheerily returned to the surface and promptly faded from the attention of popular culture."

The American Embrace of Armageddon: The Rise of the Fallout Shelter in American Popular Culture Nick James